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Originally Posted by mississippiump
Her'e my funny, embarassing HBP story. HS varsity game, winner goes to playoffs, loser goes home. I'm PU, tight ballgame. Right handed batter, pitch is 6 inches inside and about hand high. Pitch strikes the kid right on the left elbow, he never moved!!!! He takes off to 1B and I'm selling my call! I call "BALL, BATTER MADE NO ATTEMPT TO MOVE, BACK IN THE BOX".
Everything sounded ok, I was proud of myself, batter is heading back to the box, no coaches are coming out!!! I did good. Then the reality hit me when the catcher said, "hey blue, I thought the count was 3-1??? Wouldn't that be ball 4????!!!!!" What could I do? I mean everyone in the town knew that the batter didn't move because I just told them!!! So after looking at my indicator, I awarded a walk! I put my mask on, laughed at myself and just went on about my business.
Jerry
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This reminded me of situation a couple years ago. I am on the plate in game that means nothing to one team, they are out of the playoffs, the other team wins and they go, lose and they stay home. The team that had nothing to gain wins 5-4 and on two occassions one of their batters is HBP on a 3-1 count and in both cases I get arguments about how he never tried to get out of the way of the pitch. One of those hit batters eventually scores, the other one didn't. So after the game I hear a bunch of comments, including some from the AD to my partner, about how it's my fault they didn't make the playoffs.
Oh, I forgot to mention they made 4 errors in the game that eventually resulted in 3 runs scored, and they played 22 games before this one, so it's all may fault they didn't make the playoffs.
And, what difference does it make if the batter is hit by a ball on a 3-1 count and the didn't move?